“You summoned me, bearer of the blade Cortana?” said the man—Wayland the Smith; it could be no one else. “You cannot imagine I would not know a Prince of Hell cannot be truly slain, though your nerve in claiming such a deed is admirable.”

“I slew him in this world,” said Cordelia, raising her chin. “Wounded and weakened, he was driven from our realm.”

“And that wound still bleeds,” said Wayland the Smith, his teeth gleaming in a grin. “A great slash in his side, spilling his demon’s blood. It may be decades before he heals.”

Cordelia tilted her head back. “How do you know all this?”

“I know the actions of every sword I have ever forged. Ah, my children of steel and iron, how they cut pathways through this world.” His voice was a deep rumble. “Now, give me your blade.”

Cordelia swallowed hard and handed Cortana to Wayland. As he took it in his massive hands, the world around her seemed to change. Still kneeling, she looked around in amazement—the sky had darkened, the hills putting on a coat of blue-black ash. Matthew was gone. All around her were the noises of a smithy—the clang of hammer on steel, the crackle of fire. Copper-red sparks sprang to life inside the barrow, rising up like fireflies, claiming the dark.

“Ah, my child, my child,” Wayland crooned, holding Cortana up to the strange new light. “Long has it been since I forged the steel that made you and your brothers, Joyeuse and Durendal.” His gaze snapped back to Cordelia. “And long has your bloodline borne my blades. When you plunged this sword into the body of Belial, did you not think there might be consequences?”

“That’s why?” Cordelia thought back frantically; it was true she had not had cause to use Cortana since she had stabbed Belial. Not until the warehouse fight. “The contact with Belial—it harmed Cortana?”

“This blade was forged in heavenly fire and bears within its hilt the feather of an angel,” said Wayland. “When it touched the blood of Belial, it cried out. You did not hear it. You are only a mortal,” the smith relented. “And it has been a long age since mortals knew to see to the soul of their swords.”

“Tell me what to do,” Cordelia said fervently. “Whatever I need to do for Cortana, I will do it.”

Wayland turned the sword over in his hands. His eyes were coppery embers, and his fingers seemed to sing up and down the blade as he stroked it. The sword gave a single, ringing note—a sound Cordelia had never heard before—and Wayland smiled.